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THE WINDMILL |
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Then the mill caught fire. The flames rose up high, and beat out and in, and bit at the beams and planks, and ate them up. The mill fell, and nothing remained of it but a heap of ashes. The smoke drove across the scene of the conflagration, and the wind carried it away.
Whatever had been alive in the mill remained, and lost nothing by that event; it actually gained by it.
The miller's family—one soul, many thoughts, and yet only one—built a new, a splendid mill, which answered its purpose. It was quite like the old one, and people said, ' Why, yonder is the mill on the hill, proud to look at!' But this mill was better arranged, more up to date than the last, so that progress might be made. The old beams had became worm-eaten and spongy—they lay in dust and ashes. The body of the mill did not rise out of the dust as they had believed it would do : they had taken the words literally, and all things are not to be taken literally. |
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THE SILVER SHILLING
There was once a Shilling. He came out quite bright from the Mint, and sprang up, and rang out, ' Hurrah ! now I'm off into the wide world.' And into the wide world he went.
The child held him with warm hands, and the miser with cold clammy hands ; the old man turned it over and over many times, while youth rolled him lightly away. The Shilling was of silver, and had very little copper about him : he had been now a whole year in the world—that is to say, in the country in which he had been struck. But one day he started on his foreign travels ; he was the last native coin in the purse borne by his travelling master. The gentleman was himself not aware that he still had this coin until it came among his fingers.
* Why, here's a shilling from home left to me,' he said. 1 Well, he can make the journey with me.'
And the Shilling rattled and jumped for joy as it was thrust back into the purse. So here it lay among strange |
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